Freestyling about Free! – Lap 1

I have never loved swimming.

Secret Santa: Fireball & gdgd Fairies

The Secret Santa Project is run by the good folks over at Reverse Thieves, and this year, I was faced with the task of watching and reviewing at least one of the following: AKB0048, Fireball & Fireball Charming, and gdgd Fairies. I chose the latter two, which are both short shows.

Fireball & Fireball Charming

“I shall cease to be human, Jojo!”

Schnitzel with Noodles

Like everybody else here at Altair & Vega, I’m amazing at playing favorites: that is to say, narrowing down a list is a nigh impossible task. Nonetheless, I’ve managed to hammer out a list; the following five shows are those that have stood the test of time. Here, listed in alphabetical order, are a few of my favorite things:

The Curious Case of Schrödinger’s “IMOUTO”: Quantum Interpretations of Nakaimo and the Modern Otaku Narrative

It’s a poorly-kept secret amongst those who follow me on Twitter that my taste in anime is often questionable. That being said, it’s probably not too much of a surprise that one of my favorite shows this season turned out to be Kono nakani hitori, imōtoga iru!, also known by its four-moraic abbreviation, Nakaimo.

More shocking, however, is the personal observation that the series seems to have a real appeal in its central mystery; love it or hate it, people keep watching, waiting to see if we are led closer to an answer. What Hiroki Azuma wrote in 2001 in Database Animals seems to hold true in 2012: anime fans are suckers for a good mystery.

So let’s dive into the question on everybody’s lips: just who is “imouto”?

“We all want to be the one!”

Mysterious Girlfriend X Episodes 9-13 END

And in the end, the love you take…

So, post’s a bit early this week…

Self-deprecating jokes aside, I’m finishing up Mysterious Girlfriend X with this final post. I imagine that there’s still plenty of topics to be covered from the series, even in my own little corner of esoteric minutiae; however, for the sake of brevity, this post will be about as long as the other ones, instead of five times as long. For other aspects of the show, as always, I suggest Kritik der Animationskraft and We Remember Love‘s series of posts. With that, let’s get started!

The Religion of Love in 2D: Roots of Modern Otaku Courtship

Note: The following post was originally published on 7 December, 2011 on the now-defunct Remember XVI. It is presented here edited to fit the visual formatting of Altair & Vega, but otherwise unaltered in content. Yumeka and ghostlightning have written responses to the original post as well.

“Humanity does not pass through phases
as a train passes through stations: 
being alive, it has the privilege of always moving
yet never leaving anything behind.”

– C.S. Lewis, The Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition

—

What is 2D love? If you’re an anime fan, chances are that you’ve encountered it in some form. Maybe you were linked to an article about a man getting married to a fictional character. Perhaps you’ve read through (or participated!) in online discussions about people’s “waifus.” Or maybe you’ve seen a parody of it in anime, in the form of a character who can’t be separated from his hug pillow. One way or another, the idea of loving fictional characters is one that comes up often in modern anime-centric subculture.

Mysterious Girlfriend X Episodes 7-8

See how they smile, like pigs in a sty; see how they snide.

Hey all, it’s me, the mysteriously-absent Mysterious Girlfriend X episodic blogger! But no, I do apologize: I’ve been busy with real-life things and am recovering from a slight case of writer’s block! Anyway, I’ll keep this part short; this week’s (these weeks’?) post is on pigs in all shapes and forms! Yeah, really! Check it out after the break:

Mysterious Girlfriend X Episode 5

Everybody had a good time. Everybody had a wet dream. Everybody saw the sunshine.

Sorry for the late post this week! Overall, a nice episode this week; I just want to point out that this episode is the first one that plays out quite differently from the manga. (For the curious, chapter 6 is the one you’re looking for.) Well, it gave them a reason to have lots of girls in swimsuits. Just another part of understanding the differences between media! After the break, more on bikinis:

When in Rome: The Anglo-anisphere vs. “Haganai”

This is the head of the post.

Note: The following post was originally published on 17 November, 2011 on the now-defunct Remember XVI. It is presented here edited to fit the visual formatting of Altair & Vega, but otherwise unaltered in content. As such, the statistics and such in this post are a bit outdated by this point. It’s probably worth reading omo’s response as well.

Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai is quite the contentious show among fans this season. I’m not talking about the show itself; no, it’s something at a much simpler level than that: it’s about just what to call it.

Mysterious Girlfriend X Episode 4

A taste of honey... tasting much sweeter than wine.

This week, we finally get to see Ayuko Oka in action! (And perhaps more importantly, hear Ryō Hirohashi play her!)

On a side note, I have rough translations of the short essays written by Riichi Ueshiba for the first four volumes of Mysterious Girlfriend X up on my personal site. They’re spoiler-free (by my definition, at least, which admittedly may differ from yours) and cover a broad range of topics, so if you’re interested in the series, do take a look!